Pam and I took a train to the border of Vietnam the evening of Feb. 10.
We arrived in Lao Cai at 7:00 in the morning and easily got a taxi to the Chinese border. After the obligatory cup of coffee, we entered the border crossing building and made the easy transition into China.
In Hekou, the small town on the China side of the border, we were immediately approached by a young Chinese man who spoke amazingly impecable English. He asked us if we needed help. We really didn't need any help... we knew where the bus station was, where to exchange some money, etc..... but didn't want to offend him so we said, "Yes." As an FYI to all of you skeptics, my keen intuition told me that he was not a scam artist or someone who was going to try to take advantage of us. Luckily, I was right.
He lead us around to the bus station to buy our bus ticket up to the capital of the Yunnan province (where we were) called Kunming. He lead us to the bank, which would not exchange our Vietnamese Dong into Chinese yuen. We used the ATM instead. He also took us to a supermarket (the first we had seen in Southeast Asia) where we stocked up on food for the long bus ride. We were extrememly lucky to have a bus leaving Hekou for Kunming at 10:30 am. We were to arrive in Kunming about 9:00 PM.
We had great conversation with the amazingly nice Chinese guy (I didn't even get his name!) and he even PERSONALLY exchanged our Vietnamese Dong into Chinese yuen claiming that he goes into Vietnam every once in a while so he can use it. So cool! It saved me about $8.00 U.S.
We waved "good-bye" to him as our bus took off. Here is my journal entry from that bus ride:

Feb 11 - This is hilarious!
The border crossing into China was easy... much easier than expected. We were guided around by a really nice man who took us to an ATM and to the bus station. We were on a bus to Kunming within a few hours.
Within an hour on the bus, however, through the windy, twisty, mountainous roads, all turned to annoyingly hilarious. The bus staff had passed out orange plastic bags at the beginning of the trip. I thought they were for trash.... but I was educated quite quickly on just how motion sick Asians get.
People stated puking and hacking left and right!!! The Vomit Express as one Brit (who lives here in china) called it. This poor, poor woman behind us was wretching her guts out!!! The guy beside me began to lose it just listening to her. He had his hand over his mouth. Luckily, he regained his composure when she took breaks. I think her daughters were beside her... they were laughing at her uncontrollably because her wretching was so loud. She (in between heaves) kept saying something back to them... something that I took as meaning "F off"... geez.... Pam and I could only laugh and try not to be bothered by the smell. People were wretching in the back of the bus, too. Two separate people kept navigating the isles to the front of the bus for more orange plastic bags.
Then... unexpectedly, the bus broke down. It's some hydrolic brake problem. So here we are, sitting on the side of the road, with poor Chinese people women still throwing up in the bushes.
The bus driver is underneath the bus trying to fix the problem. Freakin' funny!

* 1 hour later *
It looks like they fixed the bus.... although Pam and I are concerned about how much hydrolic brake fluid we lost.
It's all in a day's travel!!!

* 10 minutes later *
Oops.. false alarm. We all piled back on the bus but only made it about 100 meters. The bus has broken down again. :)

* 1 hour later *
The guys from the bus company (after yelling at each other a bit) seem to have given up on fixing the bus. Instead, they just pulled out one of the biggest bamboo smoking pipes I have ever seen out of the luggage compartment. One guy is now squatting and smoking the bowl.
Pam and I are laughing hysterically.
"Is that opium?" she asked. Opium is very, very prevalent here in this region.
"Is that the bus driver?"
Geez.

* 2 hours later *
Okay, after losing about 3 hours on the side of the road, another bus finally showed up. That's the good news. The bad news is that there are not enough seats on this bus. Pam and I were the last to get on (I love her, but she's slow like that) so I got stuck with the shit seat.... the little teeny tiny plastic stool that I must put in the isle. I was really pissed thinking about the next nine hours sitting on a hard plastic stool not being able to lean back. Luckily, this nice man insisted that I take his nice cushy bus seat and that he sit on the stool. I feel very guity, but relieved.

* 30 minutes later *
Geez.
Another 30 minutes on the road and now we are stuck in traffic. Some kind of extended New Years celebration in some village. There are tractors in our way. At least the hacking and puking hasn't started back up again.

* 2 hours later *
Yikes.
The puking has started again, even though the roads are not as windy and twisty. The guy who gave up his seat for me seems highly uncomfortable and highly irritated. We stopped to use the bathroom at a makeshift rest stop (yuck) and I offered him his seat back.
He just shook his head and said something in Chinese, which made everyone around us start laughing.

*10 minutes later*
Oh. I see why everyone was laughing. He's one of the bus drivers.